A Maintenance App for Delhi’s Government Schools

Arvind Kejriwal has launched an app - developed for free by a Bangalore-based IT company, Mindtree - to promote daily maintenance of government schools in Delhi. Accompanied by the Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, the app was launched on Monday at the Thyagaraj Stadium that will be used by school estate managers to file complaints and inspection reports on the day-to-day maintenance of school infrastructure. The app will be made available to the public after three months to enable them to keep track of schools on a real-time basis.

Speaking on the occasion, Kejriwal said, “We had promised to improve the condition of government schools during our election campaign. Initially, we wondered if we would be able to fulfill the promise, but not anymore. The app will be used by the managers to file complaints and inspection reports regarding the day-to-day maintenance of school infrastructure.”

“The app will be available with each estate manager who will conduct school inspection daily before 9 am and report problems, if any, to the person concerned. They will then file the Action Taken Report via the mobile app to the directorate of education and the education minister by 11 am every day,” said Atishi Marlena, advisor to the education minister.

The estate managers are appointed by school principals and look after the maintenance of the school infrastructure like building, sanitation, safety and security. 650 schools already have their estate managers and rest of the schools will be covered in the next two to three months. The Delhi government had cleared the proposal to hire estate managers after school principals complained that duties of school maintenance and upkeep were not letting them focus on educational matters.

“A school principal is supposed to provide academic leadership but he was pre-occupied with other works. Therefore, the government felt that the principals needed to be freed of daily upkeep and maintenance work and gave them the powers to hire estate managers on their own,” Sisodia said.

Some estate managers were using the app for the last five weeks on a trial basis, during which 7,320 complaints ranging from sanitation to daily maintenance were resolved.